Astute Submarine - Lessons Learned

On April 5th Retired Admiral Tim Chittenden gave a lively and engaging talk about his experiences from the Royal Navy and BaE Systems - especially from his last big programme: the new Astute submarine.

He stressed the importance of requirements gathering and prioritisation, especially in the areas of Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) where last minute changes to specifications were commonplace because of the rapid development of these technologies in recent years. He stressed the importance of managing ‘scope creep’ by using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to prioritise the large number of potential changes that could be approved down to those that were most important.

Over 100 people attended the meeting at the Westlakes Science Park in Whitehaven, this the first of a new series of events in West Cumbria facilitated by a group from the APM North West Branch.

So what do people actually do on projects, and in particular do they collaborate with each other? If they do collaborate how has this come about?, and if collaboration is lacking, how then do we as project managers and leaders, encourage more collaboration?